WASHINGTON – US trades the comedian, Carrot Top, for a truck load of Canadian pennies.

WASHINGTON – US trades the comedian, Carrot Top, for a truck load of Canadian pennies.

Canadian Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, recently announced that the Canadian penny would be no more.

“The cost is just too great for us to continue to producing the penny,” explained Flaherty in a press conference, “Every year we lose more and more money by making money, which fundamentally makes no sense.”

This continual loss of revenue is what prompted the Canadian government to make the decision. The big question now is what will happen to all of those pennies? Luckily Timothy Geithner, United States Secretary of the Treasury, got wind of this change to the Canadian financial system and approached Flaherty with a unique proposal.

Geithner proposed that that the Canadian government give all of its existing pennies to the United States to circulate as an secondary US penny. The Canadian pennies will be considered of equal value to the current US pennies. The only difference being that they will have a maple leaf on one side and a picture of a woman that no US citizen knows on the other. In exchange for the pennies Canada will receive US comedian, Carrot Top.

That’s Queen Elizabeth II for those of you who did not know.

“We were really surprised that the Canadians accepted the offer. It was a total crap shoot on our part. But hey, it worked,” exclaimed Geithner, “No one really wants Carrot Top in the US anyway so we are really glad that they agreed.”

For several years the US Mint has been losing millions of dollars as a result of the continued production of pennies. Each penny produced cost roughly 1.62 cents. Just over six tenths of a cent does not sound like much on its own but when you consider the millions of pennies produced in a given year, the loss is staggering.

“This is really going to help balance the budget at the Mint,” said Geithner, “We are extremely grateful to the Canadians for agreeing to this trade.”

The stockpile of 30 billion Canadian pennies will be driven to the Canadian/US boarder where the exchange for Carrot Top will take place. It is unclear what Canadian officials intend to do with Carrot Top. Some speculate that they will allow have him do his comedic routine at all important government functions while others speculate that they may just release him into the Canadian wilderness.